England 1-0 Slovenia: Three Lions Qualify for Second Round

Jermain Defoe is the hero in England today after he scored the only goal of the game that helped England move into the second round of the 2010 World Cup.

In a game that England dominated, despite some good chances by Slovenia to equalize, Defoe’s goal was what separated the sides and enabled England to finish in second place in the group. England will now play on Sunday at 10am ET against either Germany, Serbia or Ghana.

Man of the match, for me, was England defender John Terry who put in a herculean effort to prevent Slovenia from scoring. And in one part of the game, you could see him diving through mid-air, low to the ground, to try to prevent a shot by Slovenia finding its way into the back of the net.

While this wasn’t a glamorous England performance, it was enough to win the three points for England and to take the pressure off, if ever so slightly.

In terms of Capello’s tactics, he got them right for the first time in the game. England were stable at the back and they were much better in midfield where Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney all linked well together.

When Rooney was substituted in the second half, there was no temper from the Liverpudlian. Instead, he walked off, keeping his dissatisfaction in check and allowed Joe Cole to come on in his place.

In the game, England had a goal disallowed for offside. And another shot that hit the post. But overall, they did what was necessary and can now be buoyed by the confidence to do well in the second round.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

71 Comments

Dominated!! Rooney hit post, Gerrard hit post. Milner, who i wouldn’t have played was fantastic putting great ball after great ball into the area.
No pressure now, we go out an play and see what happens.
Was a bit shakey at the end but if you don’t put teams away when you’re on top, there will always be nerves at the end.

A bit shaky, Poker! I was running around yelling half the game. Two slide tackles needed in the box and Terry diving head first to block a shot – and that was one play! We really looked shaky when they delivered long balls. Thankfully, they didn’t really seem to figure that out.

Good win, though. Bring on the next round!

Your really off the mark with the “fluke” comment. US deserved that game.

Poker, where did you go when it looked like you wouldn’t qualify? Oh that’s right you were hiding. now you’re peeking your head out from behind the woodwork and talking sh*t when you couldn’t even win the “easy” group.

Flukes? If it weren’t for some bad calls the US would’ve been 2-0-1. Get over yourself and your subpar squad.

is it so hard for fans to be classy when they don’t finish where they like? i will be the first to say, on a roster england is clearly better than the USA. but, that is irrevelent . . . as the game is played on a field and not on paper.

and for the english fans that want to say “USA is only 1st because of an english mistake”. isn’t that saying “if england had a good goalie (like the USA), we wouldn’t have tied that game”

seriously, how is that a valid point? “if we had rooney instead of findley, we would have scored more goals and won”

point is, that game was tied because england doesn’t have a good goalie. if you guys had good goalies (like the USA), you wouldn’t have entered the world cup without a clear starter.

so please, enough with the “USA lucky” crap. in sports there is no such thing as luck. ever notice it is the good players that are ‘lucky’ enough to finish? maybe that is because they aren’t ‘lucky’, it is because they are good.

howard didn’t blow any saves because he is a top five goalie in the world, your goalie did blow an easy save because his isn’t anywhere near the top 20 (in the goalie position).

Now that we the home of football have proven the Yanks wrong and won the group, we need to have a ban on the yank talk show. They do not respect the home of football and claim the Scots invented the great game. Yanks are a joke. Without Rob Green they would be flying home to USA without moving forward. NO MORE YANKS ON EPL TALK!

Finally England have arrived in SA. Not the best finishing but there was some desire to win every ball which was nice to see. I still think Rooney needs to find a better pair of boots. Once he gets one i think he’ll be on fire. C’mon England! And c’mon Serbia and Ghana!!
Cheers fellfooty fans.
-JC

Yanks go home please. You are ruining the world event for the rest of us. We showed today beating up on the same Slovenia team the USA was lucky to draw. We dominated you but Green gifted you that goal. England will win the World Cup and Yanks will return to Baseball after Germany beats you.

our victory today over a side the yanks were dominated by shows out class. we killed slovenia. the ref cost us a second goal yanks go down to last minute vs algeria. another goalkeeper error so they think they know football ah i mean soccer. most americans think yanks just won an nfl game vs algeria. thanks to yanks football for ruining wembley and destroying our national ground. some day karma will get the yanks and america will be in the sewer where it belongs. god save the queen, and listen to the three lions roar!

Yes indeed, little bit surprised to see Milner starting but after an ineffective 20 minutes, he did what the team missed most of the last match – a cross from the right (ghosts of Beckham), clinical finish from Defoe.

Cappello got it right playing two mobile forwards as opposed to the short ‘n tall knock on combo. Little less nerves, more fluidity and possession. Not perfect but effective, finishing has to be more ruthless, you’re right about Terry – great match..

it’s not about being jealous, like the rest of the world, we just don’t like you. We don’t want you in the world cup. If i had my way America would play under one qualification group, North America and South America, that way we wouldn’t need to have you in the tourney full stop.
The fact that you get a walk into the world cup every 4 yrs by being in the crapcaf section gets on my tits as you don’t deserve it.

Well said Poker! The Yanks are a scourge on the world game with their stupid rules and dumb domestic league. If you had to qualify from South America you would never make the World Cup. And the world game could continue to go on in peace.No one likes the stinking yanks. No one wants the world game overrun by a bunch of barbaric sarah palin lovers. Too bad Algeria did not finish the job today. So close, and another keeper mistake. That is the only way the Yanks win anything.

if we are such crap, and you guys were LUCKY to tie us . . . what does that make the three lions? before you folks go nuts, any team in a draw as lucky not to lose. a few shots with a few inches in either direction could have meant a USA win or an england.

so back to what i was saying . . . we hit the post and nearly beat england. pretty good for a crap team that doesn’t deserve to be there, huh?

one day you european folks will realize . . . the world is catching up with you. BTW, i wouldn’t mind at all combining CONMEBOL and CONCACAF. would we finish above brazil or agrentina, i am sure not . . . but i won’t concede anything more than that.

deal with it fellas, the USA has joined the party and come a few more years, not even your corrupt FIFA officials will be able to give us early exits.

hears to seeing england getting knocked out in the next round and hearing the entertaining excuses.

Not going to happen, Chris. Rakeback is the secret agent who caused it all in the first place. It is part of his personal campaign to break us down and retake the Empire. He still hasn’t gotten over 1776.

Fortunately, fools like him do not represent the English majority. He can safely be ignored…..unless you just enjoy winding him up. 😉

Arguing about how European teams have such an “easy” qualifying route because they play the likes of Andorra, Kazakhstan etc misses the point. In each group, only ONE team advances. Ukraine and Croatia, while not exactly world-beaters, are decent teams who wouldn’t be out of place in the world cup (i.e. they would have a chance of making the second round). So there are three strong teams competing for only ONE qualifying spot (plus the second place play-off).

Where as compare to the North American qualifying system, there are really only two strong teams on the continent (US and Mexico), and yet North America gets THREE guaranteed world cup spots, plus one play-off spot.

Put it this way – even if England dominate against the weaker teams like Andorra etc, if they slip up against Croatia and/or Ukraine, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t qualify. So those games can be crucial. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter if US lose their games to Mexico, because as long as they get results against T&T, El Salvador etc, they’re still pretty much locked on for second or third place.

Exactly… it’s an American blog for fans of the EPL. You yourself even said it in previous posts… If you’d like I’ll go pull that 😀

I must have missed the .co.uk when typing in my browser. I must have missed the blogs about US hosting parties… I also must have missed the American contact #. I must have missed the blog by the same group for MLS. i’m sure English love the MLS.

What’s with all the U.S. hate on here? Geez. I’m an American, but an EPL fan and a fan of many players on England’s squad, so I’m happy both teams advanced.

U.S. played great today. Had another goal disallowed on a bad call (offsides that clearly wasn’t), and had numerous GREAT chances to score. Could’ve easily been 3-0 or more. 1-0 did not reflect how they played. They played good today, and they played a great 2nd half vs. Slovenia. Maybe I’m biased, but I think they played the best out of the teams in Group C and deserved to come out on top of the group.

Good luck to both the U.S. and England. Hopefully we’ll see a rematch that can decide who is truly better 🙂

‘Poker, where did you go when it looked like you wouldn’t qualify? Oh that’s right you were hiding. now you’re peeking your head out from behind the woodwork and talking sh*t when you couldn’t even win the “easy” group’

Where did i go? My last post was a couple of days ago and strange as it may sound, I do have some other things to do besides talk shit on here.
Although I’m happy that you missed me I can’t promise that it won’t happen again.

I would fear for your safety, although i would be happy to talk football with anyone, there are lots of people who don’t like americans where i live and they’re not all as polite and friendly as I am.
The North is a scarey place, even people from the south of England aren’t safe here.

just like to say england fans were amazing today singing for pretty much 90mins sung over the vuvu bla bla well done england fans took more fans to a tournamant than any other country an looks like no trouble out there as of yet ,better performance today more fluid beter variety in the play

At the conclusion of Group C you can say things could have gone a lot better. A few people predicted the US and England would qualify but its hardly been rosy.

England got 2 draws which was bad and during the last match were in a have to win situation which is even worse.

On the other hand the US relied on a fluke to draw a game, got picked apart by Slovenia before coming back and then relied on a last minute goal to beat Algeria.

It’s hardly inspiring stuff considering one of us is going to have to face Germany and the other team may very well face very under rated Serbia.

I’m hoping we pick up in form(though to be honest we are probably being a little harsh on ourselves. I mean we finished on 5 points a piece in the end. If Spain win their next game they will finish on 6 points. Same with Germany and a few other favourites. Nobody has done really well apart from Argentina and Brazil who look imperious at times but they’ve already looked dreadful at times. It is a very strange World Cup) otherwise we will have problems.

Anyway I was glad to see Defoe get some playtime. It seems like there are 10 people on Rooney at any one time getting the ball to him for anything other than a very fast touch is impossible. Defoe is very capable though and has talents of his own. I hope he is utilised more often though Capello doesn’t seem to like him very much.

England will probably be ousted in the next round, while the United States has it fairly easier up to the semi-finals. Once you Euro-trash snobs understand that the USA is slowly becoming a force, the better you will be.

I find it even more hilarious that it was the English training that enabled the USA to finish above England! Ha!